Cage of Air
by rosereldew
Summary: During the conflict to retrieve Uchiha Sasuke, Neji and Tayuya fought to a draw. His willful and victorious friends saved him. She was not so fortunate. Now Tayuya is headed on a slow, interrogative path to death in Konoha and Neji finds himself once again in her proximity. The fight is over to him. But to her? They are still opponents in a world where life is an endless battle.
1. Chapter 1

Tayuya dug her nails into the tree bark. She couldn't stop panting, which was so important right now in the hot forest and with the fatigue she felt pulling her down. The pain in her chest flared up at every breath. And she couldn't move right now, as stupid as it sounded. She'd crash into a tree branch and break her neck _at best._

Shit! This day fucking sucked...

What did Kabuto say about these symptoms? The shortness of breath and pain in her chest indicated a lung injury… Tayuya looked down at the genin a good twenty-something feet below her, grabbing onto a tree root or something himself. Crippled under her genjutsu. She should take victory in that, at least, but he'd done a lot of damage before she took care of his ugly ass.

That bastard had broken Kidomaru's web and destroyed her doki, both of which were based on chakra. She'd wondered if he had some kind of chakra-depleting ability, but now it seemed to be the exact opposite- He destroyed the web _with _chakra, isn't that it? The brat had burst the entire system with an overload, and did the same to the doki when it was creating a vacuum to suck up all the chakra he had. Not only that, but he'd figured out all that in the first place. Chakra-sensing skills? Yeah, from what he'd said when he caught up to her team.

Tch… Well, that was a fucking shame. And he'd attacked her system with chakra, too… Ruptured a lung as far as she could tell. Shitty Konoha tool!

Tayuya tried to breathe in and sneered as the pain came _again_. Huh, she'd always thought of herself an exceptionally clever kunoichi, but today didn't seem to be much evidence to that.

Well, maybe not entirely. That rat hadn't been too clever himself once he got away. Hah! He legitimately thought the doki couldn't hear her from a long distance and ran around trying to guess where she was. She'd like to imagine his surprise when she popped up on a tree branch a good three-quarters of a kilometer from them.

But no, there'd been no reaction. One second he was going after her doki, and the next, trapped in the Chains of Death. Typical of amateur trash like him… It was just a matter of time until he went down, obviously. Nothing too remarkable there.

But then she'd realized how hard it was to breathe, and knew she was in trouble. She'd won, okay? There he was, totally incapacitated and ready for her to pick off. She'd won. She just had to get from _here _to _there!_

That was when Tayuya tripped and had to grab another tree limb to keep from falling. Yeah, she looked pretty fucking pathetic right now, eh? If that rat hadn't been so lucky, he'd already be lying on the ground like a fucking _ragdoll _while his life blood spilled out from his pasty neck. But no, he'd landed one or two stupid hits in and now she was in a shitload of trouble. This fucking…

Even if she managed to land "safely"...heh. There was no telling if she'd make it to him without collapsing too, from the impact of the ground. Or something. She didn't really know how that worked, but was it worth risking?

And then, he wasn't getting out anytime soon, if she could just hold on a little longer and he lost consciousness. Then she wouldn't be risking her neck, either. Or lungs, she guessed.

She guessed. She guessed it was all worth it, too. Not like anyone would think to leave her here, with her importance, with her skill. Not like the garbage friends of this kid would actually make it back to find him and pick _her_ off. That's not something to consider. She never needed to in the past, so why dwell on the crap now? If the kid the kid died at her hand, she lost her life. If he lived, she died again. If the rest of those dumbasses came back for her? Hell, maybe she had a chance. Screw all that loyalty crap! There was such a thing as a priority list.

Tayuya was still contemplating this when the edges of her vision began to blur and she clung to the tree branch for support. She found the genin again, trying to figure out if he was still under genjutsu. It was getting so hard to concentrate now, and she felt dizzy to top it all off. The pain in her chest blurred, too, and she practically slumped against the tree.

Screw it. She'd won.

Mustering up all the _incredible _strength she had, Tayuya took a deep- yes, deep- breath, and felt the pain wash over her chest and into the rest of her body. Focusing with the pain to keep her awake, she stared at him with as much intensity as you could, feeling her broken chakra network screaming as she forced it to keep the genjutsu on him.

After a few moments, Tayuya succeeded. He fell to the ground, out cold, and she finally let go. He wasn't waking up, even with the genjutsu lifted. And hey, maybe she'd live, too. But you'd won.

She hadn't _lost. _The pain in her chest dulled as her own consciousness ebbed away.

* * *

Ichita was busy preparing coffee in the break room when Izumi walked in, twirling her newly curled brown hair with her finger and carrying a folder behind her back. She sighed, flopping onto the couch to his right.

Ichita smiled pleasantly. No one thought he'd make it past coffee boy and "apprentice" in Torture and Interrogation with how nice he was. Izumi figured he'd chosen that field to release all the anger he kept locked up throughout the day and never showed anyone. Just like her mom, she thought, and the heroes in the action books her little sister loved to read.

"How are you, Izumi-san?" Ichita said. "I have enough coffee for an extra cup, if you'd like."

"Thanks, sweetie," Izumi smiled with lowered eyelids and licked her bottom lip. "I need it, today."

"What for?" Ichita turned around again. "How do you take your coffee?"

"With cream, thank you," Izumi said. "And we seem to have a new prisoner. A little girl."

"Really? That's terrible…" Ichita trailed off, pouring water into the machine. "How little?"

"Well… Not little by ninja standards, I suppose," Izumi said. "Fourteen. But you should just see her in the hospital gown. Very cute, and I might be burning her arms soon…"

"Fourteen _is _little!" Ichita declared. "I didn't make chuunin until nineteen. I wouldn't be doing dangerous missions until then."

Izumi chuckled softly.

"Well," She murmured. "I don't know how much of this you can know, but I suppose you won't ever run into a little girl in the T and I hospital with a collapsed left lung and a damaged right one. She was in a battle with another fourteen year old- to the death.

"And that's _all _I'll tell." Izumi smiled.

Ichita made a clucking noise with his tongue as he mixed cream into her coffee.


	2. Chapter 2

She'd won. She'd lost. She'd won.

Tayuya survived where none of the others did. She'd practically _killed _him when they all... Failed badly. Fucking shame.

And she was the weak spot of the team now, for having the audacity to live and fall prey to their grasp_._

_'They're all idiots…'_

They left her behind, died like they were fucking _supposed _to! And yeah, they were all supposed to die sometime, but not strapped to a chair after some mindless termites got it into their heads that she was_useless_! If Tayuya could just slit every fucking neck in Konoha, she'd definitely recover from her 'very likely initial shock', which she remembered as some line floating around in her head that she probably picked up while they thought she was totally zonked out.

She knew she was in Konohagakure. The fucking rats' nest… They'd treated her injuries and kept her sedated for, eh… Probably a long time. No doubt they wanted to quiz her on Uchiha Sasuke and his whereabouts, maybe about her curse seal, or what she'd last heard from Orochimaru-sama. Yeah… They really were shitheads.

She was feeling more alert now, and the tube connected to her armpit was gone. Tayuya couldn't remember them putting it in or taking it away, which was _weird, _thinking about them moving her limbs like a ragdoll.

"H-Hah…" she lifted an arm up, then dropped it heavily to her side. She could feel gauze or something brushing against her armpit. So whatever incisions they made hadn't healed yet…

And she wasn't sure of the effects of long-term heavy anesthesia, as the last time she'd been sedated was, what? Seven years ago after the green guy tried to steal her apple? And she'd bitten him until they pulled her off, then stared them all down as she lost consciousness. What a fucking story…

But this story was shaping up to be crap! It began and ended with Konoha rats sticking their filthy noses into other peoples' business. Yeah, Tayuya couldn't complain about getting some extra time in this pathetic world, but all of that would apparently be spent gritting her teeth without end as she stared _them _all down, every puny, retarded, beady-eyed rat they tried to pin on her. It was a tall order, and if she fell short, that would... Suck. It would _suck _and the story would be crap and she'd go down like a little girl.

Then again, she wasn't a little girl! If she'd decided 'no pain, no gain' when she was seven, she'd be dead by now at the hands of Kabuto or a peer. Back then Tayuya had known that the end result of her life was death when it befitted someone else, but that didn't mean she wasn't a fucking demon despite all that! Yeah! She was exceptional even within her limits!

'I alone am exalted.'

So she'd be just fine. They wouldn't think they'd won the battle she'd let them get into. They wanted her dead after they got their intel, so if she stuck it out until she was killed or put into a coma by some rookie interrogator, or, hell, proclaimed _unworkable, _she'd win even as she died. Which was the only option, anyway... Heh.

And this wasn't even Orochimaru-sama's battle, actually. This was about being too good for the Konohagakure interrogators and their useless methods. This was a battle for her, and that was why _Tayuya _would win.

* * *

Neji was very lucky to have fought the girl. That much was obvious.

_Tayuya's _attacks came in two parts, like most genjutsu users. The first was incapacitation, which she clearly excelled at. The next would be a final attack as mundane as a kunai to the throat. Although it wasn't _necessarily _mundane, and thus the final attack itself wasn't the weak spot. The weak spot was simply _the time between the attacks- _anything could happen at that point, such as a teammate intervening, distraction on the part of the genjutsu user, or in their case, the genjutsu user being incapacitated as well.

From their battle, he'd also gotten the impression that she was no idiot. She'd hopped around different areas all about four meters each from her doki. So he had falsely concluded that this was the distance she needed to control them, assuming that they needed to hear the sound of her flute since when he'd struck her, she'd stopped playing, and they'd stopped moving. From that, he'd spent a few minutes scoping out the possible spots she could be hiding, and she'd used the distraction to find a tree limb quite a ways from where he was to continue playing.

And he'd only realized that a split second before he fell prey to the genjutsu and became trapped in a revolving orb with strange, shifting patterns and growing heat. Neji couldn't recall how long he remained conscious now, and besides, he doubted his perception of time was the same as in the outside world. All he knew was that he _had_ lost consciousness at some point, and the moment he woke he was slung over a jounin's shoulder at the gates of Konohagakure.

Neji's head was upside down and blood was rushing into it. He still felt as though he was in the orb and could faint at any moment, so he told the jounin that he was awake and asked if he had any major injuries.

When the jounin said that he didn't and was the best off physically of any of his teammates, Neji asked to be let down. He acquiesced.

Kiba was being carried back in a stretcher while Shikamaru trudged in front of them with an arm in a sling. He nodded dully to Neji when he caught his gaze.

"Where are Choji and Naruto?" he'd asked the jounin who had been carrying him. Choji had left them first while Naruto hadn't come back with Shikamaru and Kiba. And of those two, they had vastly different injuries. So they could have just split up themselves… With the condition of Kiba and the absence of Choji and Naruto, it seemed understandable to him that Shikamaru was especially somber.

The jounin sighed and looked up to the sky. Its emptiness seemed to calm many of them in times of distress. It symbolised the rest of the world moving forward while they followed as best they could.

"Choji is in critical condition. His fate is unknown right now," he said and Neji nodded. Unknown fate was why people discussed fate at all, and he knew that now. He doubted this man meant anything other than what he thought in different words.

"And Naruto is missing."

No. Neji stiffened. Was he…?

Shikamaru looked back over at them.

"A boy named Kimimaro appeared and confronted Naruto. We haven't been able to find him since."

Neji looked back at the other jounin quickly. "Who's looking for him?"

"Hatake Kakashi, for one," another man snarled. We reached the front of the gates and two shaken-looking chuunin opened them. "We don't want you risking your life again, either. So be grateful for how little you've got to show for this shit."

Slightly put off by the cheapening swear word, Neji just shook his head.

Naruto was missing. He was the chain that kept them from losing Uchiha Sasuke, and if he was lost too…

Neji took a breath and stared at the buildings. It was nighttime now, and he could have activated Byakugan to catch sight of the people clasping their hands over their mouth and respectfully backing into their homes, but there was no point to it now. They were walking directly to the hospital, where nurses would be turning in and out around the clock, so there would be plenty of staring then.

Naruto wasn't dead. He had to think that, now, not out of grief or shock, but because he knew how hard it was to kill a Jinchuuriki and what threats their deaths posed. It wasn't something he could bring up now, so it had to wait.

Naruto. Dead. Lost…

Neji would ask for sleeping pills if he was allowed into the hospital, he decided.

And if he had activated Byakugan then, instead of just being sent up to a room to be checked on and falling asleep with haste, Neji would have seen what was behind the walls three rooms to his right. The operation room.

He would have seen her.


End file.
